Tokyo Fox (東京狐)

The World Cup is being shown across six different channels in Japan which can prove a little troublesome when trying to tune into each match. Games have been kicking off at 10 pm, 1 am and 4 am here but for some reason not many of the 4 am group games have been shown on these terrestrial channels including Argentina v Holland and also the England v Sweden game which could only be seen on satelite.

I got up at 3:30 am yesterday morning (I say got up but I never actually got to sleep at all) and got myself down to the nearest British bar to suffer Henrik Larsson’s late equaliser help the Swedes keep up their unbelievable record of not losing to us in 38 years!

The bar wasn’t so busy. Only one other gaijin and maybe 20-30 Japanese England supporters. This was actually my first England game in a bar and I sat among a group of Japanese guys and within seconds one of them was wanting a photo of himself with me; a real live English fan.

I had a couple of beers which actually went down far better than I had ever hoped for at that time of day and also got chatting to a Japanese guy in a West Ham shirt which was quite refreshing given the nature of most Japanese ‘glory-boys’ who usually don only Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea shirts.

For some reason he had given himself the English name of ‘Johnny’ from when he lived in the east end of London and it was quite nice to share my views on the beautiful game (no, not ‘Countdown‘!!) with someone. Not sure if he even understood me most of the time but he did the typical Japanese thing of nodding and saying yes which in Japan doesn’t mean “Yes I agree with you” necessarily but just that “Yes I am listening to you”.

Having failed to get in on our previous two visits (refused entry to the Japan games because tickets needed to be purchased in advance) myself and Asif went to Nakata.net Cafe in Aoyama on Monday night. As I said in a previous post, this bar is a shrine to the Japanese midfielder. Thats one way of looking at it. The more cynical among us would maybe suggest that his name is used to promote the bar to the gullible!!

We arrived just in time to see Switzerland and Togo play on a huge screen in a “soccer lounge” with a line of laptops on one side, raised rows of seats on the other, a load of unused tables on the large floorspace and a sort of terraced area facing the screen with comfy seats which is where we sat. They have tried to create a kind-of-stadium feel which is possibly enhanced by the games not having commentary and just the stadium sound.

With an entrance fee of 3000 yen we got five vouchers for drinks or food. A tad more than I usually pay but for a one-off it’ll do. While the bar was a bit flash and poncey the food was very much sub-standard. Would be good to be in this bar when its full and with atmosphere but the Swiss game was only attended by a few die-hards.

Having surrendered their lead in the first match against the Aussies it was time to put the right wrong for the Japanese last night. I went to a much more lively bar in Shibuya this time to see a game which did no favours for the Japanese or the Croatians but it does offer a tiny glimmer of hope for the final match unklike many other groups where the qualifiers have already been decided before the last games even kick off.

Its all too common to see Japanese football fans wearing England or Brazil shirts but the opposite rarely happens. With this in mind I wore my ‘Nakamura 10’ Japan home shirt and got many pleasant as well as strange reactions.

The atmosphere was good and it was nice that we actually found a ground level bar in Tokyo which is very rare given the nature of the high rise builldings that dominate the capitals skyline.

The one major difference between Japanese and English supporters is the excitement which is created in terms of goalmouth action. Us English fans tend to only get excited when there is actually a reasonable goalscoring opportunity but for the Japanese to get wildly (over)excited the ball only needs to be in and around the last 25 metres or so. If the ball is in in this area then the excitement reaches fever pitch regardless of whether the ball is anywhere nearing hit the back of the net.

Finally got round to experiencing my first World Cup game in a bar last night. I was working till 10pm so rushed to a bar with a colleague to watch Japans opener against Australia. We tried and failed to get into ‘Nakata.net Cafe’ which is a shrine to regular Bolton bench-warmer Hidetoshi Nakata who is maybe Japan’s greatest export. Instead we ended up in some tiny secluded flashy upstairs bar in Shibuya where a small selection of buiness workers had gathered to watch the match.

I think the Japanese in there thought we were maybe Aussies at first but after one of them overheard me saying that I hated the ever-gloating Aussie sports teams we got chatting. This was at exactly the same time that Japan broke the deadlock with what was a very dodgy goal. The second half then followed Englands negative sitting-back style a bit with the big difference of course being that England held on whereas the Aussies came from behind to hit the Japanese with three late goals.

The final whistle just before midnight here saw thousands and thousands of deflated Japanese supporters heading for the stations and their homes crying into their sushi! One of my students today thinks that the World Cup is already over for them. We shall have to see about that but with Croatia and Brazil to come it could well be the end after their Leicester City-style act of throwing away last nights game.